Piano Battle - Robotic Pianist TeoTronico VS Roberto Prosseda, Italy

Teotronico (hereinafter referred to as Teo), a robot pianist born in Imola of Italy in 2012, is designed and manufactured by Mateo Suzi. Teo plays the piano through many dynamically controlled joints, 53 fingers of whom can move in an extremely fast and exact manner. Teo can produce and play MIDI documents from piano rolls recorded by past great pianists, such as Ferruccio Dante, Achille-Claude Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Josef Hofmann. Moreover, Teo can talk to and even interact with us by making facial expressions, such as movements of the head, mouth, eyes, eyelids and eyebrows. Under the “mirror performance” mode assisted by professional pianists, Teo can provide other musicians with ensembles. Hence, Teo can exert an influence in many fields.

Roberto Prosseda’s sensational discovery of new works by Mendelssohn made the headlines in Europe and led to several Decca releases. His albums have won much acclaim in the press, including the CHOC from Le Monde de la Musique Classique, the Diapason d’Or and Chamber Music CD of the Month in the UK’s Classic FM magazine.

Roberto Prosseda has performed regularly with some of the world’s most important orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Moscow State Philharmonic. He played under the baton of David Afkham, Marc Albrecht and so on. Roberto Prosseda is also very active in musical divulgation. He wrote the book “Il Pianoforte” for EdizioniCurci (2013) and made three documentaries dedicated to Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt (Euroarts).

In March of 2012, Teo was firstly introduced by the pianist Roberto Prosseda to the concert stage in a seminar. Roberto then explained the distinction between musical reproductions and interpretations. Teo made its debut in the orchestra performance at the Berliner Philharmonie in August. Together with the Berliner Symphoniker. In 2017,Teo became more popular after a cooperation with Lang Lang.

During the concert, Teo and Roberto will consecutively play piano and orchestra music in “Piano Battle”. Teo will make a discussion and negotiation with Roberto and audiences: How could players moderately perform the works composed firstly by composers? This battle between human beings and robots aims to explore the essence of musical performance and to stimulate the public to appreciate the music in a more independent, critical and devoted manner.